BCS Problem Solved

Like most people in Ohio, I was glued to the TV tonight to find out who the Buckeyes would play in the championship game.  With Fox dragging out the announcement of each of the four BCS games, we were talking about how important a playoff would be.

It is hilarious to hear the different sports commentators talk about the failing BCS system, but that a playoff will never happen.  I heard no less than ten different announcers say, “it is not going to happen for an assortment of reasons.”  There is only one reason it will not happen: money

The individual bowl games make a ton of money for the individual sponsors.  We will have these bowls forever because everyone makes a lot of money.  I heard that the Big Ten lost $4.5 million after Illinois beat Ohio State and it was assumed that the Big Ten would only send one team to a BCS bowl.  That’s one team’s share for playing in the game.  Imagine what the sponsors are making.

Here is a way to keep what we have, yet have a playoff for the championship.  Take the top four teams and have their bowl games count as the semifinal round of the playoff.  These two bowls could be the Rose and Orange or the Fiesta and Sugar… it doesn’t really matter.  We only need to make sure that the top four teams play in the these two bowls.  The winners play the next week in the championship.

Last year they added the extra game at the site of the championship.  Did anyone else notice that Georgia and Hawaii are playing in this year’s Sugar Bowl in New Orleans on January 1.  Then, one week later, the BCS Championship is at the same location.  They did this last year with the Fiesta Bowl and then the BCS Championship.  Two years ago, is was Texas winning the Rose Bowl, not the BCS Championship game.

I think we can pick four teams with a lot less controversy than picking two teams.  As an added bonus, the champion would have to win in back to back weeks.  That is something a real championship team can do.

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Don’t Tell Your Kids They are Smart

A Scientific American article says that a focus on effort will make your kids more successful than a focus on intelligence.

Our society worships talent, and many people assume that possessing superior intelligence or ability—along with confidence in that ability—is a recipe for success. In fact, however, more than 30 years of scientific investigation suggests that an overemphasis on intellect or talent leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges and unwilling to remedy their shortcomings.

You may think that telling your kids they are smarter than the other kids will boost their self-confidence, but the research shows that this kind of thinking can lead to failure when the work becomes more difficult.  Learners that think they are more intelligent are quicker to become disillusioned by problems they cannot easily solve.

So instead of trying to pump your kids up with positive statements about how smart they are, tell them instead that their effort gives them an edge.  If they understand that they cannot possibly know everything, they will be ready to learn new things quickly.

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Doodlekit

doodlekit.png

One of my students presented this site as an example of how free web page tools have progressed.  Doodlekit is a free web creation and hosting site.  With a free account you can have a page in the http://yourname.doodlekit.com domain.

Pages can be edited with a built-in WYSIWYG editor.  You can upload pictures to a photo gallery and even designate specific pages/photos to be password protected.

A blogging tool is built into your personal web page.  This enables you to have several front pages that are static with secondary pages, like blog pages, that can be changed often.  The main page has a side menu with links to the various site components.  New blog posts are listed in this menu as well as an RSS feed.

I did some searching and found several sites with similar tools. 

http://www.jimdo.com
http://www.synthasite.com
http://www.weebly.com

There are undoubtedly others.

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MIT OpenCourseWare – now for high school

I talked about MIT’s OpenCourseWare project last year in my eTech presentation.  This is a great resource if you are interesting in the content of a college course.  MIT has placed many (I have heard people say “all”) courses online and has made them available to the general public for free.

Last year, I needed a quick thermodynamics refresher, so I downloaded the class notes from a Physical Chemistry course.  The PDF’ed lecture notes were clear with pictures, equations and definitions.  There were also assignments and a complete syllabus in case I wanted to work a few problems or take the whole course. 

In fact, everything was there except the faculty person.  MIT makes these courses available because they know students out there want the information in the courses, but may not have the chance to take a course at MIT. 

Today the MIT president announced that a new high school portal called Highlights for High School is being developed.  This initiative will give high school students and teachers resources for advanced courses.  It turns out that about 15,000 high school students are currently downloading MIT course materials each month.  It was speculated that many secondary students do not have advanced course offering because of the reduction in funding of gifted and talented programs.  The Highlights for High School program is designed for these students.

I like the motto of the program:  Unlocking knowledge, empowering minds.

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Free – SnagIt and Camtasia Studio

TechSmith is offering two popular titles as free downloads.  Both SnagIt (screen capture) and Camtasia Studio (screencast capture) are utilities I have used for years.  Now the company is making last year’s versions available for free.

These free versions do not expire.  The hope of the company is that you will like them enough to pay for an upgrade to the latest versions.  If you upgrade these free versions, TechSmith is offering the new versions at half price.

If you capture web pages, one feature of SnagIt may save you a lot of time.  As the picture on the right shows, SnagIt can capture an entire scrolling web page in one shot.  This is much easier than trying to capture one screen at a time and pasting them together.

Camtasia Studio is used to create screencasts like those used in Atomic Learning.  Basically, anything you do on your screen can be captured in real time while you provide audio in the form of a voice over.  All you need is a microphone and you can create custom tutorials for anything on your computer.

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